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Planting

I have several acres of land that I can plant for bees and was curious what you guys thought would be a good plant to put on the land. There is plenty of goldenrod around my area. I have some locust, poplar, sourwood and basswood trees as well. I have thought about planting some clover both yellow and white, more locust, sourwood and poplar trees along with some milkweed. Any other thoughts of what you guys would plant? Are these plants above good to plant and would they benefit my bees in the long run especially the trees? Thanks for any imput.

Re: Planting

I appreciate the responses. It appears that sweet clover is a good choice and I like ccar2000's suggestion about a local wildflower mix, I never thought about that. What is a tala tree and when does it bloom?

Re: Planting

Regular sweet clover is a biennial, meaning it grows one season and then flowers the next. There should be some seed that does not germinate the first year and will the second. Once it starts blooming it will reseed itself. Mixing it with some hubam clover, annual flowering sweet clover, will extend your nectar flow since typically flowers after sweet clover.

A wildflower mix may be nice but, not all wildflowers are nectar sources.

There is also Bee bee trees which are supposed to be a good nectar source too!

Re: Planting

If where you are thinking of planting already has grains and other grasses, I would suggest Hairy Vetch. It will climb the stalks of grass and blooms very well and bees love it.

I have a couple acres of pasture grass/grains, and this is what I'm going to plant. It will not be crowded out by the grasses, which can happen with other low growing legumes. Keep in mind i say this because I had pasture grasses and grains that were close to 5 feet tall this year and it crowded out the other things i've planted for the bees. This year it's going to be hairy vetch sowed after the first fall rain.

"A good day is when no one shows up and you don't have to go anywhere." - Burt Shavitz (Burt's Buzz)

Re: Planting

I have just bought several pounds of white prairie clover, some milkweed seeds, black locust tree seeds as well as sourwood tree seeds. If I plant the clover this fall, would it bloom any the next spring or would I have to wait another year before a bloom? With the sourwood and black locust, I plan on growing them in 5 gallon buckets, is this a good idea? By growing this way, how long would I have to wait until they reached a plantable height? Thanks for the information.

Re: Planting

I have White Dutch clover that usually blooms the same time as the Tulip Poplar and the bees will work the Poplar first.
I have found that they work what they prefer so if you have multiple sources they might not work all of them.

Re: Planting

Starting with seeds on locust, it would be 5-7 years if you're lucky before blooms. Even then, most locusts bloom once every 5 years or so (sometimes less, sometimes more.) I'm not sure on the sourwood.

I think the bee bee tree blooms in about 3-5, and generally consistent blooms yearly (not sure, I don't have any.)

I've heard Coventry is a fast nectar producer. Flowers refill nectar in about 15 min, might want to see if you can get that. The bees in my neighborhood are all over the purple thistles around me, but are ignoring the mint and yellow clover.

There's another plant family to consider, the mints... Spearmint, lemon balm, bee balm.